


Soulmate dry your eye ('cause soulmates never die)

by ymirme



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Royai Week 2020, old wounds prompt, there are scars but no graphic description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24645481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ymirme/pseuds/ymirme
Summary: Summary: Fuhrer Roy Mustang has to deal with some old wounds, luckily General Riza Hawkeye is always by his side.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 22
Kudos: 37





	Soulmate dry your eye ('cause soulmates never die)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, happy Royai Week 2020!!! This is my first English fic and I made it for the “Old Wounds” prompt, I hope you’ll enjoy it! Thank you @metacrisis_chook for being my friend and beta, love you so much <3

The mess hall was crowded as it usually was at noon, the familiar sound of chattering breaking into the hallway when Fuhrer Roy Mustang opened the dark wooden doors. It was so loud he couldn’t hear the storm raging outside anymore, the rain had been pouring down since the early morning and the wind was so strong it bended a tree he could see from his window.

His new rank came with responsibilities, sure, but with some privileges too, like a personal chef and a private room where to eat his lunch in peace and quiet. He had never took advantage of this opportunity once and continued having lunch with his subordinates at the same, old, chipped table. He merged in that crowd sneaking past people, trying to avoid being recognised and start the usual chain of salutes, small talk and unnecessary gossiping.

Waiting for his turn to take his bowl of stew, he scanned the room looking for his team and finally spotted Havoc, Catalina, Fuery, Falman and Breda, uproariously laughing their hearts out at a joke, and judging by the expression painted on Havoc’s face, he was the victim of that joke. The old lady working at the cafeteria greeted him and served his portion, that looked slightly more abundant than the others’, and handed him a little loaf of bread to match it. With his usual womaniser smirk, he thanked her and went his way with his fragrant stew bowl, already savouring the tasty meat and fresh vegetables.

Suddenly, a sharp pain struck through his right hand making him lose grip on the tray, which fell on the floor loudly causing everyone to turn towards his direction, thus ruining his undercover mission. The stew spilled everywhere and the bread started filling with the hot liquid. Not that he cared about the mess in that moment, kneeling on the floor, squeezing hard the aching hand with the other, his breathing quickened and teeth clamped. That pain wouldn’t go away and latched onto every one of his nerves, strangling them. He could feel them throbbing, begging him to set them free from that torment.

Those were the wounds that King Bradley inflicted on him with his swords, moment before opening the Portal of Truth. The Philosopher’s Stone he used to heal Havoc’s legs and to restore his own sight had been long used by Dr. Marcoh and its power wore out before he could use it on his hands. Or General Hawkeye’s throat. Roy had accepted it, fully confident he could have healed all the same. He was wrong, of course. He later discovered how delicate hands could be and how hard was to recover from literal holes carved in his palms. A small gathering of people approached him, visibly worried for their Fuhrer’s well-being, but before he could even speak a familiar voice stepped in, inviting everyone to go back to their business. Hawkeye squatted in front of him, over the stew puddle, and rested a hand on his shoulders.

“Perhaps you need a hand, sir?” she whispered teasingly. He rewarded her with a strangled laughter, finally lifting his gaze from the ground.

“Make it two, Hawkeye. They both hurt like a bitch right now.”

“That’s what I thought. Let’s go to the infirmary, sir.”

* * *

Roy had always hated the infirmary and yet he had to see it far more than he would have liked. The sour green and white walls were painted recently and he wondered why they chose the same colors again. Shouldn’t they ask the Fuhrer first?

“Sit, sir. I’ll be right back with some ice for your hands,” Riza gestured towards the doctor’s chair and he obeyed, but sat on the desk. The General let out a defeated sigh but didn’t argue, she then vanished behind the door of the ice-house shuffling the medicine vials, looking for some ice cubes.

The pain in Roy’s hands had numbed down, turning into a dull ache reverberating through his fingers and wrist, up until the elbow. Trying to give himself some relief, he tried to massage the center of his right palm, where the reddish scar was, failing miserably since the other hand wasn’t collaborating either. Letting out a frustrated groan, he abandoned his task shortly after, and started scanning the room to focus on something that wasn’t that pesky sensation.

Hawkeye finally came back, mission accomplished, and grabbing a clean handkerchief from the inside of her uniform she wrapped the ice in it.

“Open your hands, sir,” she ordered, handing him the cold, little bundle. She rested the back of his hand over hers and put the ice on his right palm, then grabbed the other hand and placed it over the cloth. She gingerly cupped them both, helping him holding them in place. The cool sensation of the wet handkerchief soothed the pain instantly and the Fuhrer sighed, relieved.

“Thank you,” he said, sternly. “I really made a fool out of myself, didn’t I?”

“I don’t think so, sir. You can’t control the weather and barometric changes make the old wounds hurt, it’s a normal bodily response.”

“I suppose, it happens when it rains. I guess water still makes me useless,” Roy grinned.

She gave him a fleeble smile and fell silent for a few minutes, both enjoying the companionable silence, lost in their own thoughts. Riza’s hands were warm and soft against his and the contrast with the cold ice was giving him an unfamiliar yet pleasant sensation. He could feel his hands going number and number, to the point he couldn’t feel his palms and fingers anymore.

“Are you feeling any better, sir?” Riza’s voice was almost a whisper, as if she didn’t want to break that comfortable atmosphere the silence had created. Roy lifted his gaze and found hers already on him: he was the Flame Alchemist, his flames could create an intolerable heat, but her deep brown eyes were threatening to melt him on the spot, like one of the ice cubes he was currently holding.

“I can’t feel them anymore, to be honest. I guess that’s positive,” he shrugged, still not retracting his own hands, seemingly wanting to absorb Riza’s body heat until he caught fire himself. Because she, her body and her soul, reminded him of fire whose tongues could both warm and mistreat with its licks, motherly and dangerous, both blaze and hotbed.

“Good, we can switch to some exercises to warm the hand up,” Riza’s hands opened his, carefully removing the dripping handkerchief. She quickly tossed it in the sink and sat again on the chair facing the desk on which Roy was sitting.

“You know how much I hated those exercises,” he eyed her, lifting an eyebrow. “I don’t even remember how to do them.”

“Well, good thing I do remember. Let me help, sir. Please,” she said, and it sounded more like a pleading. Roy could sense something was wrong with her, he should have known better: she was acting weird since they had arrived at the infirmary, her body language betraying her stoic expression; that vein on her temple raging was proof of her uneasiness.

A thunder shook the building, the floor trembled below their feet and the rain started pouring harder and faster than before. The wind slammed the window open, Riza felt her back and hair dampening with raindrops but didn’t move from the chair she was sitting on.

“You’re gonna catch a cold if you keep staying like this.”

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you from that madness,” she finally spoke, her voice no more than a whisper. She looked so tiny now, sunk in her shoulders, sheltered by her winged fringe. “I’m sorry I failed you… I’m sorry I couldn’t follow you into hell.”

Roy froze on the spot, flashes of those black hands dragging him through the Portal of Truth, all those information forcefully shoved in his brain, the world around him suddenly going from blinding white to pitch black.

He shook his head lightly, trying to get a grip on himself. Last thing he wanted was to make her feel worse than she was already feeling. A whirlwind flared up in his mind, he couldn’t stand to see her in that sorry state, but what was bothering him more than everything was that she was _right_. What he saw was actual hell, and he was glad she didn’t get to see it. She had already seen enough of it.

He lowered his eyes to his hands, her thumbs were drawing circles over the red scars while applying a light pression, expanding the movement gradually until she reached fingers and wrists. She knew what to do, she had followed every medical examination attentively back when they were at the hospital, both recovering from their wounds. Riza made sure to learn every stretch of the fingers, hands and arms, every point where to apply pressure, and was meticulously repeating them by heart.

In those small gestures there was everything he meant to her: hope, devotion, redemption, friendship, connection… Love.

“You know, you were there,” When he spoke, he couldn’t help but to touch her hair, pushing the damp strands from her forehead and cheeks. She lifted her head, startled by his words; her cheeks had dried up already and her expression shifted into a giant question mark, which Roy found very funny since it was hard taking her by surprise. “Over my Portal of Truth there were engraved two serpents and a Sun, which looked really similar to those on your back. The Elrics told me their Portals were different from mine.”

“That’s just the Flame Alchemy,” she argued, arching an eyebrow.

He scoffed, for the first time in his life he was about to checkmate Riza Hawkeye. “You didn’t do your homework, General. Those serpents are meant to represent water and femininity, the White Queen in alchemy embodies these elements and she’s also seen as calculated and controlled. Does it sound familiar to you? You were _there_ , Riza. You were there _with me_ , you’re always with me.”

A tiny smile finally dawned on her face, softening her expression. She stopped massaging his hands and started bending genty each finger and once she was done, she switched over to the other hand, giving it the same ministration.

Then. Then she did something Roy had never expected: Riza drew his hands near her face and placed the tiniest, sweetest kisses on both his palm, over the scars.

And Roy felt like he was on fire. If she really was water, in that moment she was boiling hot. He knew he was blushing like a teenager in love and he also knew she noticed, because of the playful smile she was giving him.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your words. Do you feel better now?”

He could tell how relieved was feeling now. He squeezed lightly her hands in his, dwelling in their warmth for a few seconds more. Then, he let them go. The storm had finally calmed down, but she was still wet from the rain poured down on her back and hair.

“I am, thank you. Now let’s go get some lunch, I’m starving,” he said while making his way to the infirmary door, eager to take a breath of fresh air and calm his racing heart.

“Yes, sir. Can I ask you a question?” He turned towards her and nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“What does the Sun mean? And why was it engraved along with the serpents?”

Roy swallowed, caught off guard by her way-too-specific question. Should he explain that the Sun, associated with the Red King, was meant to represent him and thus the intertwining of those elements was specifically addressing the marriage of the two? No, like hell he was explaining that. He felt his ears flushing even harder than before. It looked like Hawkeye was about to checkmate him once again. In that moment, he realised he had forgotten she had studied alchemy at some point in her life; she had intentionally cornered him. The only choice was to leave the game. “Dry up and meet me at the mess hall, Hawkeye. I can’t run a country on an empty stomach.”

He quickly closed the door behind him before she could get the chance to reply and heard her unmistakable, clever and crystal clear laughter expanding through the room on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> * That part on Riza’s tattoo was inspired by this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv4GiaOwanw&list=LL3-5rVrX5UDDzQlvxZjr2oQ&index=31&t=8s. If you haven’t seen it yet GO SEE IT NOW IT’S THE BEST!!!  
> * Title taken from the lyrics of “Sleeping with Ghosts” by Placebo 
> 
> come say hi on tumblr @ymir-me !!!


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